


cold in the morning (salvia blooms)

by eosandselene



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Renjun and Donghyuck are sustainable science students, Renjun is an activist, transgender lee jeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eosandselene/pseuds/eosandselene
Summary: Part of him, the tired and grumpy, has-been-up-all-night-gaming part of him, wants to take a back route and avoid all of the fuss. Then the clouds above part, pale sun shines down on the world and one of the campaigners, the one wearing a long tan trench coat and round glasses, turns around. The light glints off of his hair, giving him an almost halo. His cheeks are flushed with wind chill and his lips are chapped, but he's still the prettiest person Donghyuck has ever seen.Renjun.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56
Collections: Renhyuck Fic Fest





	cold in the morning (salvia blooms)

**Author's Note:**

> my fill for prompt #006!

The weather is colder than usual for early October, but it’s a nice kind of cold. Brisk, his mother likes to call it. Refreshing. Tiny goosebumps are sprouting along his forearms, where his hoodie sleeves are pushed up. The breeze is doing wonders for his headache. Perhaps chugging three red bulls after pulling an all-nighter playing Minecraft with Jeno had been a bad idea, and the extra-large mocha with two extra shots and a tonne of whipped cream that he’d demolished on the way to class is the only thing keeping him awake right now.

He’s wearing his softest, thickest cream jumper with a pair of skinny jeans, and as comfortable as this outfit is, it isn’t a good enough substitute for his cosy duvet back at home. Despite all his exhaustion, he can’t help but feel like it’s going to be a good day.

Across the courtyard, there’s a group of people huddled together talking in front of a big cardboard stand. Donghyuck’s sleep-deprived vision is too fuzzy to make out what’s written on it, but every time someone scurries past them, one of the group will break the circle to hand them a leaflet. It’s probably some sort of campaign.

Part of him, the tired and grumpy, has-been-up-all-night-gaming part of him, wants to take a back route and avoid all of the fuss. Then the clouds above part, pale sunlight shines down on the world and one of the campaigners, the one wearing a long tan trench coat and round glasses, turns around. The light glints off of his hair, giving him an almost halo. His cheeks are flushed with wind chill and his lips are chapped, but he's still the prettiest person Donghyuck has ever seen. 

_ Renjun. _

Donghyuck wouldn’t exactly call his feelings for Renjun 'love', but they’re certainly more than just a crush. There’s just something about him that draws Donghyuck in. Every time they get into a debate in one of their modern philosophy lectures, or when Renjun eviscerates someone else for their awful opinions in animal ethics. It’s a given that most of the people on their course, sustainability science, care about animal rights, but Renjun never seems to do anything with less that one hundred per cent of his full effort. It’s an incredibly attractive quality, Donghyuck isn’t afraid to admit.

And the flirting they've been doing in between lectures certainly hasn't been crushing his feelings.

So, despite his exhaustion, Donghyuck ploughs onward towards the stall.

Renjun sees him coming a mile away. He’s ready with a set of pamphlets in one hand and an iPad in the other, all tied together with a resolute smile.

“Hello, Donghyuck!” He says. His voice is clear and determined and Donghyuck wants to record him saying his name and play it as a lullaby, over and over again until he’s fast asleep.

“Hello, Renjun. What’s going on here?”

“We’re campaigning to raise the prison sentence for animal abusers,” Renjun thrusts the iPad at him. “Six months is a fucking joke. You can sign the petition here.”

Donghyuck takes the iPad and fills in the petition, no questions asked. He trusts Renjun, and even if he didn’t, change dot org hasn’t let him down so far. Animal cruelty is so often overlooked, it’s completely unfair. He hands the iPad back to Renjun. “Don’t suppose I could have a leaflet too?”

“Sure,” Renjun smiles at him, “It’s got more websites and recommended reading, as well as the normal facts and figures.”

He skims over the leaflet, unsurprisingly it’s a lot of Peter Singer but there are some other people on there too. He tucks it in his bag, in between a copy of  _ ethics in the real world _ and  _ animal liberation _ . “I’ll give it to my dad when I get home, he can bring it into work with him and put it in the window of his practise or something.”

Renjun pauses. “He’s a vet, right?” Donghyuck nods. The light shifts overhead, making Renjun’s eyes look like liquid gold and illuminating the light flush high on his cheekbones. “I think you mentioned that a few times in one of our lectures.”

He can’t remember mentioning his father more than once in any of their shared lectures, which can only mean one thing - Renjun has been paying just as much attention to him as he has to Renjun. It’s that, paired with the godawful sleep deprivation that prompts him to ignore the weeks of careful flirting they've been hedging around one another with, and to say what he does.

“I’ve got lectures until quarter past twelve, but do you want to get lunch after? If you’re free, that is.” He takes a sip from his near-empty coffee cup to mask his anxiety and notes with some satisfaction how the flush on Renjun’s cheeks intensifies, and his eyes widen.

For a moment, he thinks Renjun is going to say yes. Then, something shifts behind his eyes, and he takes a glance at the rest of his group behind him, either not paying attention to their conversation or doing a damn good job of pretending.

“I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I-” he pauses for a moment, fiddling with the pamphlets in his hands and looking up at Donghyuck through his eyelashes. “I’m afraid that I don’t date people who don’t use reusable coffee cups,” He’s practically laughing at the last few words, a coy smile tugging at his lips as he flicks Donghyuck’s empty cup.

“It’s recyclable,” He finds himself mumbling, and then he can’t help but laugh along. It’s not an agreement to a date, but it’s also not a rejection. Donghyuck has definitely had worse, even if it is still a bit uncomfortable. “Ah, of course, though,” He says, “It’s not quite the same as reusable. Too bad about that date then.”

They spend a moment just staring at each other, smiling in that moment together. Then, “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow in contemporary conversations, I guess.” 

Renjun laughs after him as he walks away, the clouds above move back into place, covering the pale autumn sun again. The light has receded, but he’s not cold. In fact, there’s a thrum of warmth running through him. He barely even notices that his headache has disappeared until he’s in his lecture.

The campaigners are still there when Donghyuck stumbles onto campus on Tuesday morning, but Renjun isn’t among them - unsurprising since he’s in the same seminar Donghyuck is. Not that it matters much - they’re having an intense conversation on the death penalty, so there’s no time to mull over any delicate flirtations. Still, Donghyuck can’t help but pay more attention to Renjun than strictly necessary. He’s frowning slightly, barely glancing at his notes before launching into his points and sipping out of his Moomin themed reusable coffee cup after every couple of rebuttal.

But Renjun is beautiful, all angles and curves. His hair has been pink for the last couple of weeks and it makes him look like some kind of sprite or faerie. Donghyuck can’t look away.

And that’s how Donghyuck finds himself in the middle of town on Wednesday afternoon. There aren’t any decent reusable coffee cups in any of the health food shops, and he doesn’t want a branded one from a coffee shop chain like Starbucks or Costa. There are a few decent ones in Waterstones, but most of them are all covered in brightly coloured geometric patterns, and that’s just not Donghyuck’s thing. He’s tried texting Jeno for help, but all he got back was a string of dancing girl and cat face emojis.

He finally makes a breakthrough in a small cafe-and-florists found down the third turning off the high street. It’s a good size black cup dotted with tiny yellow flowers and tiny grey skulls, with a soft yellow silicon lid and cup holder. He takes a picture of it to send to Jeno, who replies with the sponge emoji, followed by a random string of numbers and a picture of a cat in a trombone. It seems like a good response, so Donghyuck buys it right away.

Thursday morning finds Donghyuck sliding into a seat at the back of the lecture hall with maybe ten seconds to spare. He would have been early, but he had to stop at the uni cafe and test out his brand new coffee cup. It doesn’t have any coffee in it, he had two red bulls this morning, along with half a monster, and he’s had enough caffeine headaches for one week. Instead, it’s a toffee, vanilla and banana milkshake, sickeningly sweet and ice cold.

He passes through most of the lecture in a daze, barely bothering to take notes. He can hear the warmth of his bed calling to him and it feels like a bit of a waste to come to uni at all - at least until he sees Renjun in the front row.

He doesn’t have the energy to focus on the lecture, his mind is filled with other things. So instead of taking notes like renin seems to be doing, he messes about on his phone.

Jeno has sent him a picture of Seol and Nal asleep on his new binder, with Bongsik staring on disapprovingly in the background. ‘ _ Doyoung _ ’ has been written over Bongsik, and ‘ _ us _ ’ is written over Nal and Seol. He’s captioned it, “when the kids are being brats but they’re too cute to punish”

Donghyuck sends back a stream of hedgehog emojis and a picture of the three of them as kids. The worst part of university is not having Jeno with him, but further education just wasn’t his thing. Instead, he did a gap year temp job with the national trust, and now he’s volunteering at the local animal shelter while he gets ready for his apprenticeship in January.

He passes most of the lecture this way, flicking through last weeks notes and sending random childhood photos. Jeno doesn’t have many - a lot of them got deleted in the midst of a bad patch of gender dysphoria - but he loves to look at them. Eventually, they get sidetracked arguing over who had the better Halloween costume when they were thirteen and then before he knows it, the lecture is over.

Renjun was one of the closest to the front and so, he’s one of the last to get out of the hall. He spots donghyuck almost immediately, lounging against the wall with his brand new travel cup in hand.

“Good morning Donghyuck,” He says, “Fancy seeing you here. Waiting for me, were you?”

Donghyuck tilts his mug in Renjun’s direction. “Mmm. You know, I heard the strangest rumour the other day?”

“Oh?” Renjun grabs hooks and arm through his and starts leading them out of the lecture hall, “And what would that be?”

“ _ I heard a rumour _ , that you have very specific criteria for dating people! Something reusable, wasn’t it? Now, what do you make of  _ that _ ?”

There’s that same glint in Renjun’s eye again, the one that makes Donghyuck feel like he’s being… not exactly laughed at, maybe laughed with? Either way, it’s an invigorating feeling, like being let in on a secret.

“Oh well, if that’s it, I suppose the rumour mill got one right for once,” Renjun snags the mug out of his hand and takes a slow sip, grimacing when he gets syrupy sweet milkshake and not the coffee he was presumably hoping for. “I have a very strict dating code.”

“Is that right,” Donghyuck laughs, taking back his mug and taking the final sip of his milkshake.

“Mm, yes. It’s not exactly a secret that I only date people who bring their own reusable bags to shop with.”

There’s a pause while Donghyuck takes that in, and then he’s jabbing Renjun in the ribs with his fingertips, and practically shouting over the sound of Renjun’s choked laughter, “Ugh, give it up already, will you! Do you wanna date me or not?” the last sentence is more of a whine than he’s proud of, but Renjun doesn’t seem to mind.

Renjun slips his arm out of his, but Donghyuck barely has a moment to miss the warmth before soft fingers are being pressed against his and they’re holding hands. “Oh, go on then. I suppose a couple of dates couldn’t hurt.”

“A couple, huh? Someone’s confident,” Donghyuck teases. He’s kidding, of course. They both know that it will be ‘a few dates’ at  _ least. _

“Shut up,” Renjun says anyway. “Oh, and by the way, I have a meeting with the V&V society tomorrow about getting the uni shop to only sell fair-trade chocolate, wanna tag along?”

“Obviously,” Donghyuck says, and the sun above them shifts, sending light down in waves across their path.

It’s going to be a good day.

**Author's Note:**

> The refernces to raising the sentence for animal cruelty are based on a recent (successful!) UK campaign, and Peter Singer is one of the most amazing moral philosopher, and I would highly recommend his books to anyone interested in animal activism - particularly 'Ethics in the Real World', which is a series of essays (on more than just animal ethics, but that does cover a good chunk of the book)
> 
> Jeno's relationship with his pre-transition photos (deleting them but wanting to see them after) is based on a friend of mine, but if it comes across as insensitive in any way please let me know!!
> 
> Thank you for reading!! :))


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